phants,
quantities of dead wood were gathered in heaps in readiness for large
fires to be made when the animals approached our gardens. Several pits
were also dug and covered with a hurdle, on the top of which earth was
thrown and grass carefully laid. These pits were placed in the old
paths of the elephants, because it was known that these animals always
followed in their old tracks whenever they revisited a country, and
though these tracks were overgrown, or obliterated, yet the instinct, or
knowledge of locality of the elephants was so great, that they would
travel miles through the bush, and then come out into the open at
exactly the same place at which they had come out of the bush some
thirty or forty moons previously.

The Caffres told me that the elephants did not understand any man
getting up into a tree; that if they were chased by an elephant they
climbed a tree, and, although this tree was not big enough to place them
beyond reach of an elephant, yet the animal never seemed to think of
pulling the man out of it, or of pulling down the tree. This
information was of great value to me in carrying out a plan that I was
forming in my head.

It was about half a moon's time after we first heard that elephants were
coming our way, that we discovered their traces within five miles of our
village. There was a marsh about five miles from us, formed by the
overflow of one of the rivers, and in this marsh the elephants had
rolled in the mud, and had then returned to the bush. In this bush
there were several large trees, hung over by creeping plants and very
easily climbed. Having followed the track of the elephants into the
bush for a short distance, I noticed a tree that was covered with mud
about the stem, and as high as I could reach with my assagy. This was
caused by the elephants rubbing themselves against the tree after they
had rolled in the mud.

Although the elephant is a thick-skinned animal yet he is much worried
in hot weather by flies and mosquitoes. So, to escape in some measure
from these pests, he rolls in the mud, and this mud sticking to his
hide, forms a coating over him, which defends him to some extent from
the mosquitoes. When he passes a thick tree he leans against this and
rubs himself, and thus rids himself of a portion of the mud, and spreads
it more evenly over his body.

Having selected a tree, I thought at first that I would tell Inyati what
I intended doing, and would ask him t